"Every artist is a cannibal; every poet is a thief."

The good news is that I'm excited about writing at the moment. The potentially awkward part is that my new idea was inspired by Recent Events.

I didn't do it on purpose. I think what happened is that with all this confusion (and there is still a ton of that -- we have no clue what happened or what's going to happen), I needed to detach myself from the whole thing. I started looking at it from a fictional point of view, analyzing how someone who wasn't me would feel and react. What would it be like to be a teenage girl whose [x] was accused of [x]?

And then I started imagining her and her life and considering ideas. Somewhere, somehow, I decided that this might be a story worth telling.

I did email my agent about it (without even so much as hinting that I might have personal experience with this particular thing), and he encouraged me to work on it. He said that RIGHT NOW should be one of the best times for me because I already have an agent, my first ms is on subs (and therefore completely out of my hands), and I don't have an editor's feedback to consider yet. I should be free! And write ANYthing I want. So, I shall.

I started making a list of scenes to start with, and I'm feeling that sick high that always comes at this stage. The only thing that gives me pause is that a few members of my family will likely object to me writing about this concept, no matter how fictionalized I make it. Is that a line that shouldn't be crossed? I don't know. At this moment, I'm not too concerned since all I have are a few pages of scribbles in a journal, you know?